GOP Risks a New Cold War

Before Republican senators vote down the strategic arms reduction treaty negotiated by the Obama administration, they should think long and hard about the consequences.

In substance, New START has none of the historic significance of Richard Nixon’s SALT I or ABM treaty, or Jimmy Carter’s SALT II, or Ronald Reagan’s INF treaty removing all intermediate-range missiles from Europe, or the strategic arms reductions treaties negotiated by George Bush I and Bush II.

The latter cut U.S. and Russian arsenals from 10,000-12,000 nuclear warheads targeted on each nation to 2,000 — a huge cut.
If Republicans could back those treaties, what is the case for rejecting New START? Barack Obama’s treaty reduces strategic warheads by 450, leaving each side 1,550.

Is this not enough to deter when we consider what the Chernobyl disaster did to the Soviet Union and what the knockdown of two buildings in New York has done to this country? Ten hydrogen bombs on the United States or Russia could set us back decades, let alone 1,000.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is holding up the treaty until he gets more assurances that the administration will do the tests and upgrades necessary to maintain the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons. He should receive those assurances.

Maintaining the credibility of the U.S. deterrent is a vital national interest. But does this justify holding the treaty hostage?
Without a treaty, we lose our right and our ways and means to verify that Russia is carrying out the terms of arms treaties already agreed upon.

How does leaving the United States in the dark about who is doing what with Moscow’s nuclear weapons enhance our security?
Not only are our allies behind this treaty — as are Republican secretaries of state and defense and ex-national security advisers — so, too, is the Pentagon.

If the joint chiefs say this treaty is good for America, what do the reluctant Republican senators believe is wrong with it? Have they considered the impact of the treaty’s defeat on Russia?

In Russia today, there is a widespread belief that when the Soviet Union gave up its global empire, allowed itself to be split apart into 15 nations and brought the Red Army home from Europe, America exploited her weakness by moving NATO onto her front porch.

We brought the Baltic states, all former republics of the USSR, into an alliance aimed against Russia. George W. Bush sought to bring in Ukraine and Georgia, thereby surrounding a Russia that had sought our friendship with U.S. power.

Among Russia’s elite, there is an understandable distrust of the intentions of their old superpower rival. For Republicans in the Senate to kill New START would clinch the case of the anti-Americans in Moscow that we are not interested in nuclear parity but seek strategic superiority.

Killing the treaty would morally disarm those Russians who see their future with the West.

On taking office, Obama put the Ukraine-Georgia accession to NATO on a back burner and canceled the anti-missile missile system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic. His policy has paid dividends.

Half of the U.S. supplies going to the war in Afghanistan go through Russia. Moscow has backed U.N. sanctions on Iran and refused to deliver to Iran the A-300 surface-to-air missile system it had promised. President Dmitri Medvedev is interested in Russia’s participation in a missile defense for all of Europe.

Behind the Obama policy lies this reality. The best way, the only credible way to secure the freedom and independence of former Soviet republics like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia is not by threatening Russia with war, but by bringing Russia in from the cold and giving Russia a growing stake in aligning with the West.

No matter the NATO war guarantees we have given to the Baltic republics, we are not going to war with Russia over Estonia. For the first result of such a war would be the annihilation of Estonia.

Moreover, many of Russia’s concerns are our concerns. Moscow does not want to see a Taliban triumph in Afghanistan, as that would embolden Islamic secessionist movements across the North Caucasus that have conducted terror attacks inside Russia itself.

Russia is also deep into a demographic crisis, with more than 500,000 Russians disappearing every year. That this should happen is both a human tragedy and a strategic disaster, for Siberia and the Russian Far East, and all their resources could wind up under the de facto control of 1.4 billion Chinese.

Richard Nixon would have supported this treaty. Ronald Reagan would have supported this treaty, as he loathed nuclear weapons and wished to rid the world of them. And simply because this treaty is “Obama’s treaty” does not mean it is not in America’s interest.

If Republicans should kill New START, and Vladimir Putin responds by using U.S. rejection to rev up Russian nationalism to terminate the “reset” and return to a policy of cooperating with America’s enemies from Pyongyang to Tehran to Caracas, does the Republican Party wish to be held responsible for that?

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15 Responses to GOP Risks a New Cold War

Russia is an oriental despotism pretending to be European. It could hardly be otherwise, given the damage done to it by Genghis Khan. It has also labored under the regime of an invasion or famine every generation for hundreds of years.

The miracle ingredient of liberal democracy is trust. We obey traffic lights not because of the soldier on the corner with an AK-47, but because we understand and trust the legal paradigm of our society. True, forces have managed to taunt and torment Americans into surrendering their trust, but it took considerable violence and exhortations – some world say propaganda and manipulation – to convince Americans to abandon freedom.

In Russia civilization is as thin as a bubble; any contact with trouble can pop it. Worse, it is expected to pop. When Stalin commented, “Treaties are like pie crusts – made to be broken” it was not as remarkable for its sentiment as for his willingness to say so publicly, as if the truth of it was so self evident that no responsible thinker could deny the truth of its premises.

Mr. Buchanan’s well-known warmth toward Russia stands out as an exception to his attacks on other totalitarian states. The reason is the 500-pound gorilla in the room from which eyes are averted: Russia is nominally Christian. Both the German and Russian peoples profess Christianity, but in neither country did that stop their leaders from committing some of the worst atrocities since the Middle Ages within the last few generations.

Having said that, I support engagement with everyone along the lines of Jeffersonian realism. Borrowing from Disraeli, America has no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

Mr. Buchanan’s rehabilitation of Russia is an appalling contradiction to his other political positions – even less understandable as KGB veterans remain in positions of power in Russia and in many of the governments of the “former” Soviet Union.

Thank you, Mr. MacLeod for sharing with us your so cherished prejudices. Sadly, you didn’t say anything original or new besides dull hatred and xenophobia so common for some individuals. Try harder.

Do you know why you expose yourself such way? It’s simple. You paint the world only in black and white colors. Us vs. Them. The same way the world is perceived by fanatics and zealots. KGB – bad, CIA – good. Russia – despotism, USA – democracy (whatever you mean). Russia always wrong, U.S. always right. You didn’t even missed my loved one: Russian – inferior, Americans – superior.

It should be frightening to think about if people with the above views will get the office. Once, it’s happened in Europe in 1933. Even M.A.D. has a weak point – it’s not considered to be a deterrent for crazies.

Russia is an oriental despotism pretending to be European. It could hardly be otherwise, given the damage done to it by Genghis Khan

Complete crap, not even worth being discussed. You can also mention the damage done by glaciers during the Ice Age. As for alleged orientality, it’a a typical Western misinterpreting (born in Roman Catholic church) of Byzantine roots, which are also European (but since 1453 it’s often overlooked)

After all, have you even been somewhere in Europe? Try that, the results may shock you, since the reality drastically contradicts your strange yet stiff views on civilization matters..

Russia is preeminent among the Slavs in their historic role as the gatekeepers of the True West, the civilization founded and defined by the recapitulation in Jesus Christ and His Church of all three of the Old Israel, Hellenism, and the Roman Empire.

She is therefore an obvious and inevitable enemy of those who adhere instead to the pseudo-West in all its social and economic libertinism and decadence, even at the barrel of a gun, and with all the internal repressiveness that both the social and the economic aspects really entail in order to maintain their godless, rootless, borderless, metrosexual globalism.

That is funny. Macleod tells of the Russian and German atrocties like the good ole US of A never has committed any at all. AndYeah maybe Russia is nominally Christian, but so is the United States. Folks sayt hey are Christian in this nation for the most part out of a sense of self righteousness, forget the actual creed or rules they are supposed to live under.

It’s probably more important to have treaties like this with potential threats than your friends Mike. Really it is. You don’t have to like them. Cutting down their nuclear arsenal is a GOOD idea. Playing games in their ex republics like Georgia…I dunno seems pointless to me when we need their cooperation in supplying our failing empire outpost in Afghanistan.

Republicans need to get over their reflexive Cold War approach to dealing with Russia. The Soviet Union is long dead. We have more important things to concern ourselves with now, and Russia is an important part of what we need to do. In fact, it can’t be done without Russia.

We need a strong and confident Russia that sees itself as part of Europe and which is embraced by Europeans and Americans.

As for Mr. McLeod’s rant, the refutation is in recent history itself. Modern Russia is a result of a good and decent people overcoming their history and trying to make a better life for themselves. If Mr. McLeod was right, they would never have made it past the Yeltsin crisis. Instead they would have simply transitioned, like North Korea or Cuba, from one dictatorship to another.

First off, since I’m new to this website, after reading some of the comments left responding to Mr. McLeod’s assertions, I would like to ask that people please refrain from using the Native Americans as scapegoats and examples with which to point out America’s past wrongs. It is becoming cliche and wholly beside the point. While I admit that it was not used in this discussion, the implications were hardly veiled.
Second, as a student of the Russian language and through that a student of its culture, I am in the unique position of having an objective analysis of the situation. I have long held the belief that instead of squaring off over every matter, the United States and Russia, being the world’s two preeminent superpowers, should work toward building a more stable world. While I have my doubts about the New START Treaty, in the end it would be to our benefit. Perhaps the reason Republicans aren’t supporting it is that they see no short-term accomplishments in implementing it. And I agree that Sen. Kyl should have his guarantees.
However, there is a small (infintismal) grain of truth in McLeod’s line of thinking. The main problem with Russia is similar to the problem with China: we never know what they’re thinking. Winston Churchill commented on Russia, “Russia is a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside an enigma.” And at times, politically and militarily, they have been unpredictable.
Despite this, we should seek further ties with not just our allies but also with Russia. Strengthening ties with Russia will alleviate our allies’ fears about Russia and could possibly bring them into contact with the Tamed Bear.
One further point: Mr. McLeod, your assertion that Russia is an Oriental despotism is wholly inaccurate. Before the murder of the Romanovs, the tsar has been based on the idea of the Roman emperors, a Western idea and institution. Further, Russia was a medieval feudal system and even after the expulsion of the Mongols retained the imperial ideal which was further westernized by Peter the Great and subsequent tsars continued in the same manner, especially in the Napoleonic times, when Russia, especially the nobility, were predominantly Francophiles.

Thank you all for the opportunity to contribute to this interesting discussion.